Who needs bat boxes when you have a sewing room?

I believe I have mentioned that we live in an old house.  Now, by New England standards, it's actually fairly new, having been built in 1885.  To truly be considered old it would need to at least predate the Revolution.  The parts of it that the zookeeper hasn't totally torn apart started remodeling have horse hair plaster walls and left over blown-in cellulose insulation that was some previous owner's really bright idea.  It has long since settled and thus provides no keep the house warm value but hey, let's give the mice something cozy to sleep in...

In addition to the mice (which is why we have cats, even if I constantly catch the zookeeper trying to give them away) we have birds nesting in the eaves of the barn (I mean literally in them.  Apparently there are hollowed out spots in the wood), a beehive somewhere under the house near the foundation, wasp nests at every high point of the roof that seem to multiply each winter (and which I convince the zookeeper to knock down with a pressure washer each summer)...we even had a serious issue with chipmunks getting into the pantry at one point.  We've had skunks living under the porch (discovered by our dog.  There's a smell for you.)  Hell, it would almost be like living in a zoo even if we didn't, you know, live in a zoo.

The mice are enough to creep me out.  I don't mind knowing they're there, but seeing them is a different story.  Sushi got one in my bedroom a couple of summers ago when I was in the middle of repainting it, and left it conveniently hidden under the tarp.  Not what I was expecting to find when I moved it, and it was like six hours before I could get up the nerve to go back in there and finish the job.  (See why I'm such an embarrassment to the zookeeper?)  But bats?  Bats bring me to a whole new level of creeped out.

Back in October, the zoo got these little guys

who proceeded to make more little bat babies, which everyone kept insisting I needed to go and see.  Since just posting this picture here has given me the heebeejeebees, and an uncontrollable urge to twitch convulsively, you can bet my answer to viewing little beady eyed bat babies was a resounding "oh hell no!"  The pictures were enough to give me nightmares.  And since I know some of you want to see the pictures (why is totally beyond me) here is one.

It isn't the best picture, but what do you expect when you pull back the drape on what should be a quiet mommy/baby moment ("Hey, freaking BREAST FEEDING here!  Do you Mind?) and shine a gd megawatt flash in their eyes?  I'd probably look like that too.  Minus the wings.  And the pointy ears.  But the whole evil eye thing I know I can do.

At least these Egyptian fruit bats live in an enclosure.  Meaning, they are enclosed.  Meaning they can't get out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time we had a bat in the house was about eleven years ago.  I remember because Sunshine was still brand new.  The cats spent all day sitting in the living room, just staring at the curtains, swishing their tails with their heads cocked sideways the way cats do.  I couldn't figure out what they were staring at, and for a minute thought it might be a ghost (the house is old, after all) and that would have been pretty fricking cool.  But a newborn and a toddler have a way of distracting you and keeping you too busy to think, so I forgot about it.  Until later that night, when the cats stopped  just staring and started trying to tear the curtains down. I flipped the drape aside, and jumped about two feet off the ground (and probably turned the air blue with what I screamed.  It wouldn't be the last time the daughters heard me swear.)  Clinging to the sheers, and of course hanging upside down, was a little brown flying fucking rodent bat just waking up from sleeping there all day.  No wonder the cats were on guard all day, and going nuts when it started moving around.  Yes, yes, I know that bats aren't rodents, because every time I call them that the zookeeper treats me to a lecture on taxonomy and classification, but to me they are flying rats all the same.  I screamed, my visiting sister in law came running, and I hid in the family room with the baby and the door shut and locked.  I think she got it outside with a broom and a dustpan.  My overreaction was probably just due to new mother hormones.  At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I think we saw one or two more in the house that summer and the one after, and then they just stopped visiting.  I can't say I missed them (because my mother taught me not to lie) but I can't say I gave it much thought, either.  More like a freaky, creepy thing that happened randomly and then stopped.  And if you're jumping up and down with your hand in the air and doing your best Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter impersonation, yeah, I'd probably have to guess White Nose Syndrome right along with you...

But hey, looks like they are making a comeback, if the number of them we found in the house last year is any indication.  And I'd be happy for the little critters too, if they didn't live in the eaves of my attic, and find their way inside on a regular basis through my freaking sewing room.  That's right, my place that I spend hours hiding from the daughters refuge has now become the room in my house I most don't want to go in.  Not that I've been doing much sewing lately, but the ironing board lives there, and anyone who knows me knows that I hate to do laundry.  And the part I hate about it most is folding it.  Which means that everything I want to wear needs to be ironed. (Yes, I iron my tee shirts and sweaters too.  Wrinkles do not make a fashion statement.)  Which means it sucks to be me, because the eaves of the attic are open to the sewing room, and that's how the effing bats keep getting into the house.  It isn't random.  They're squatters.  They live there.  And they don't even pay rent.  Oh, sure, they eat mosquitoes and bugs and stuff, but seriously?  In my sewing room?  You should see me every morning, gently easing open the door (because I try to keep it closed in hopes of keeping them contained at least) and tiptoeing in so as not to wake them up.  I took the curtains down (can't fool me twice) so they can't hang there, but the ironing board is attached to the door (which is why I don't just move it to another room, in case some smart ass out there was going to suggest it.)  So I'm always careful to check it out veeerrry carefully before I pull it down.  Then I iron as fast as I can and get my ass outta there.

Last summer, I woke up in the middle of the night to see/hear one flying through my bedroom.  I was terrified to go to bed for days.  I think that's the one the cats stunned in the family room, the one the zookeeper scooped up and tossed outside.  I say stunned because they downed it on the carpet (yay kitties!) but after it flopped around on the grass for a few minutes it flew away.  Then, there was one dive bombing me in the kitchen one night.  It flew into the bathroom, and I shut the door. Ha!  Except now I can't go in the bathroom.  So, of course I have the sudden need to pee...the zookeeper got his gloves, went into the bathroom, and shut the door behind him.  I, worried for his safety, hid in the family room and hollered for him to be careful.  I'll be damned if he didn't catch that bat in thin air and come out with him.  I followed him outside and watched him let the bat go...only to fly right back up to my goddamned sewing room again. 

Me:  "Well that was effective."

Here's a picture of a little brown bat that I found on the internet.

Creepy, right?  Look at those teeth..

I keep asking the zookeeper to seal up where they can get in, and he keeps telling me "it's on the list."  I hate the list.  And I hate bats.  And now I hate my sewing room.